Artfest: Lessons for the future
Artfest has been such an important part of my artistic development that its end almost feels like I've lost an eye I didn't even realize I had.
It gave me a new way of looking at my world and my art, even when I wasn't surrounded by my Artfest peeps.
A few valuable lessons I've learned from four joyously creative Artfests:
Ask for help, early and often. Of all learning environments, this was the place to ask for help when I needed it, but no. When I fell behind, I panicked and made things worse by not asking for help. Not this year. And voila -- no meltdown. Only took four years to learn that one.
No one can buy your art if they don't know you're selling it. Each year, I'd brought art to sell in the Artfest gallery/showcase; each year, I brought it home when it didn't sell. So I assumed my friends knew I wanted to sell mini-collages there this year... and didn't tell anyone about the artwork. They only found out when I mentioned I'd have to take the unsold collages home. One person bought a mini-collage right then and there. Another bought three more later that day. [holsters gun to stop shooting self in the foot]
People will find money for what they really want. See that piece above? A recent college graduate -- and budding art collector -- is purchasing "Greener" on an installment plan. No, he's not making a lot of money right now. But he decided he wanted to have "Greener" because he liked the story behind it, and because it will remind him of me. Well, that's ten different kinds of awesome right there.
I once read when you create a piece of art (visual, written, or otherwise), the work will reveal things about you that you'd never intended to show. The prospect of that kind of exposure is still unnerving. But you know... Artfest also taught me those revelations are valuable to others as well as myself.
I once read when you create a piece of art (visual, written, or otherwise), the work will reveal things about you that you'd never intended to show. The prospect of that kind of exposure is still unnerving. But you know... Artfest also taught me those revelations are valuable to others as well as myself.
Artfest, night three: Show & Tell
It's great to be so absorbed in your own Artfest classes that you barely notice the time flying by. But it also means you have no idea how other people have been slinging paint, soldering metal, and generally getting their art on. Hence the Show & Tell gallery on the final night of Artfest.
Another doll from one of my Clarissa Callesen's "Steampunk Sally" classmates...
If I hadn't taken "Under Your Skin" with Erin Faith Allen, I'd have asked for the Soul Portrait Empowerment class. (Really, pretty much every photo I took was of classes I wish I'd sent my clone to take.) This piece was by Lili McGovern.
OMG. This one by Rita Roman, from Andrea Matus' "Dorian Gray Portrait" class. (The "sun" is a mirror).
Michael deMeng's Eye of Fatima class...
Clarissa Callesen's Wild Things...
Those were just a few of my favorites. Tune in tomorrow for the final wrap-up.
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| Tally Oliveau with her Jesse Reno class pieces |
Artfest, day three: showing some "Skin"
By the time you get to the third day of class at Artfest, you're usually pretty wiped from staying up late for one reason or another. And you're aware this is your last full day before you head back to reality. People tend to be pretty subdued.
Even my pal Janine and I didn't do much cutting up in our only class together, "Under Your Skin" with Erin Faith Allen. We were to meditate on our personal stories, using photos of body parts and anatomical illustrations as symbols.
I like the old Vesalius-style drawings, where the body is posed "naturally" to show how the various systems work.
Combined with matte prints of photos and all my new paints (yay!)...
I attempted to do three pieces at once, mainly so I would focus more on story versus getting things "right." We each chose a word we associate with how we feel about our bodies, and tried to keep that word in mind as we worked.
Not surprisingly, things got fairly intense for each of us, so I'm going to respect my classmates' privacy and not give a lot of details.
I will say the word that came to me was "sanctuary."
I didn't finish any of my canvases, and I may have been getting a little ambitious with three; two would've been better, and I would've gotten the colors a bit more accurate. (See how hard it is not to critique, even when you're happy about the direction of your work?)
But the class was absorbing enough that I wasn't terribly bothered by my sloppy technique or by not finishing. I still took my work to the Show & Tell gallery later that evening. A good chunk of pieces there can't even be picked up because they're still drying and, like Janine's sticker said at the beginning of this post, fragile. Stick around for scenes from Show & Tell.
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| Courtesy National Institutes of Health |
But the class was absorbing enough that I wasn't terribly bothered by my sloppy technique or by not finishing. I still took my work to the Show & Tell gallery later that evening. A good chunk of pieces there can't even be picked up because they're still drying and, like Janine's sticker said at the beginning of this post, fragile. Stick around for scenes from Show & Tell.